dirty, angry money. let's play "hardball." good evening. i'm chris matthews in washington. leading off tonight, enemies of democracy. each of you watching tonight has a single vote. but what about the right wing billionaires and the money billionaires who can elect or destroy wherever they wish. the koch brothers and the americans for pros tear ti is dumping into eight states to

take down president obama. what about the powers of the interest to control house and senate races. plus back in the ussr, are mitt romney and his ideologues of the right looking to reignite the cold war? one ally said we aren't doing enough to stop the soviets. another said we've abandoned czechoslovakia, which hasn't existed since 1963. these people who always seem to have their eye on yet another war to fight. also, we know republicans have made it their goal to destroy barack obama but did you know they started planning to sabotage him the very day of his inauguration? and it's an old hollywood aidage, funny is money. so try making a buck when the audience is the white house correspondents' dinner. it's a tough crowd. but tonight, we have a comedy writer who once came up with ones lake this one for president

obama. >> others say i'm arrogant but i found a great self-help tool for this, my poll numbers. >> we're going to look back at some of the best moments from past dinners as washington gets ready for tomorrow night's big night. we begin with the angry money, john heilemann and david cornish are here with both, both are msnbc political analysts. i was struck this morning by a small item, gentlemen, in the "washington examiner" which i try to read every day. it's a shopper with lots of interesting news. americans with prosperity, it's funded by david and charles koch. so let's watch what they're up to. these ads.

>> $1.2 billion to a solar company that's building a plan the in mexico. $500 million to an electric car company that created hundreds of jobs in finland. and tens of millions of dollars to build traffic lights in china. president obama wasted $34 billion on risky investments. the result? failure. american taxpayers are paying to send their own jobs to foreign countries. tell president obama, american tax dollars should help american taxpayers. >> think progress. a progressive organization disputes the facts in this ad. among other complaints, it says two of the ads claims about jobs in mexico and finland are based on false stories by conservative bloggers. the koch brothers don't like any green industry, period. they don't like alternative fuels. they're out spending millions and millions of dollars to trash

any effort to get an escape route down the road in the future from oil and gas. >> this is a two-for for the koch brothers. they don like the president, don't like democrats, support republicans and they hate democrats who talk about alternatives to fossil fuels. they are attacking obama falsely, based on false information. at the same time they're making it sound like it's crazy and nutty to care about green jobs. all this talk about obama about green jobs it's really helping china and mexico. we get a phobia mixed in. right out of karl rove's playbook. >> guess where it comes from? citizens united. i'll talk about it tonight. everybody treasures their vote, i don't care if you're on the left or somewhere on the right. but you only get one and get to vote in one place. people like these koch brothers can go anywhere, all over the

country, dump tons of money and switch a race around. >> they can. and they will. and you know, it's -- look, we've had a series of decisions made, starting with the supreme court back in 1972. we've progressively seen the system of progressive campaign finance destroyed. we have this every cycle it gets worse. this is the last in a string of bad decisions, regulations, lack of regulations. it's gotten worse and worse and worse and now we've reached a point where it's hard to imagine it could get worse in terms of the way in which unregulated, private money is getting involved in our election cycle. i'll tell you as a strategic matter, it's a huge problem for the president. because right now, although there are a lot of rich people who like barack obama and supported him in 2008, he is in danger of getting not just outspent in this election but getting dramatically outspent in this election. >> what's driving this huge amount of spending by these

corporations and rich people? angry. they hate obama. >> they hate obama. as david point out, a lot of them are not ideological. some of them are businessmen -- >> who want tax breaks. >> or regulations repealed or regulations that have been repealed reinstated. >> he was brilliant. he said all these groups have to do -- anybody watching can understand this, they simply go to a local congressman, a woman, who may be moderately popular. say if you don't vote for a creepy deal for corporations, that gives them tax break on debt, that nobody in your district has heard of, if you don't vote on it, we're going to blow you away. the congressman says people won't pay attention, i guess i'll do it. >> they don even have to say it. these ads can happen at a moment's notice, to the weak left, when the candidate himself or herself doesn't have the ability to put an ad together to get it up, they could come in and buy all the tv time in your

district for the last weekend. people are running scared and are preemptively looking out for what not to do. >> so they kiss the butt these right wingers. bloomberg news reported on the staggering difference in fund-raising. while obama had a 10-1 campaign cash advantage over romney at the start of the month, that ratio drops to almost 2-1 when the republican super pacs are added to romney's arsenals. when you look at the pro obama superpac money, raised $9 million and romney's raised $80 million. when all is said and done, both expect the race in excess of $750 million. is this -- how do people keep the morale up when they go to vote knowing they're up against

this crapola of money thrown at them. >> i said this has been a progressively degenerating system over the last 30, 40 years of american life. we've seen it cycle by cycle. it has gotten worse. voters so far look at this as a process issue. it is the no yet. maybe we're at a tipping point. >> okay. >> but so far, voters have seen this, politics is dirty and corrupt, i don't care, there's a lot of money. >> i don't carry a torch for santorum although i think he ran a gutsy campaign. newt gingrich is interesting to watch. i didn't root for either of these guys but they went up against romney and his money machine. all of us watched this in florida, michigan, ohio, they weren't even in the race because of this money. money ran the primaries. >> the election is becoming -- john is right. >> this will happen in november. >> we may be getting to the curve when it start going into hyperspeed if you remember "star wars." and you have these angry billionaires, i call them venting billionaires, who can

come in and tilt the balance. >> the koch brothers. >> others as well. there are a whole bunch of others. on a moment's notice they saved romney's super pac friends saved his butt, adelson, kept newt in the game longer than he otherwise would have been. they're having real impact. this is before we get to the general election. the general election is going to vote on six, eight, ten state elections, not nationally. you say 6, 10, 20 billion and put them in the key states, that's a lot of influence at those tipping points. >> thank you, gentlemen, thank you heilemann and thank you, corn. david heilemann and david corn. >> thank you, chris. we talk about the free world, the soviet union, czechoslovakia. they have the old lingo. his advisers are talking this up. do you want to go back to the days of duck and cover? this is "hardball."

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americans know, americans know that we can't go back to the future and see the world through a cold war prism that is totally out of touch with the realities of the 21st century. >> back to "hardball." does mitt romney want to refight the cold war? vice president biden left no doubt that he believes mitt romney is out much touch with his foreign policy. but before the biden speech, the romney campaign set up with reporters to set up a prebutal before the biden speech, and the problem is that they wound up making the point of being old-time cold wars without making them. let's listen. >> russia is another example of where we give and we get nothing in return. the united states abandoned

its missile defense sites in poland and czechoslovakia -- >> well, czechoslovakia has not existed as a country since the early '90s when it split into two countries. and another foreign policy adviser said they have revived another cold war word. let'sly listen. >> the reality is that it is opening up huge new vulnerabilities and we are seeing the soviets pushing into the arctic with no response from us. >> well, that is john lennon of the 600 ship davie and did a good job, but the soviets are gone. with foreign policy advisers like these, romney doesn't need enemies. chris cillizza is managing editor of post politics.com and author of "the fix." . he's also an msnbc contributor. i read hymn all the time. you are both young. i have to tell you, this lingo is familiar to my ears. you know? the free world, the soviets, czechoslovakia. i understand how you get -- my

grandpa used to call connie mack stadium shibe park because 100 years before that's what it was called. you begin to sound like a geezer and a little out of it. >> it's true. a lot of the folks surrounding mitt romney are from george h.w. bush's foreign policy team. sometimes you feel like they can't run on the rhetoric of george w. bush. i think obviously the democrats making this argument that this is a throwback. you also see romney trying to make the argument that in some ways obama embodies the old, soft democrats who are soft when it comes to defense policy and national security. >> well, chris, it also seems more dangerous than come cal to me. it seems like neoconservatives which this group is largely made up of, they always have a war they want to fight. they wanted to get into iraq and

afghanistan. they always wanted to fight a war. now they want to be more aggressive in arming the rebels in syria. they always want to push it to another war over there. it's not like a comedy team. these people are pushing and are always war hawks. they always have one in their pez dispenser, the next war is waiting its turn. they never say hold back and see what happens. it's always, let's get in there and fight. >> i would agree, this is serious stuff. i think, chris, sometimes in the political dialogue we go down rabbit holes of misstatements and things that don't matter. this stuff, how you articulate america's role in the world does matter in a very real way. i was struck, i talk to norm coleman, a former minnesota senator and adviser, foreign policy adviser to romney, i talked to him yesterday. and he said essentially that barack obama represents a break with how america has presented itself to the world since, you

know, basically world war ii. this peace through strength idea, the idea that obama, he bows to foreign dictators and wants to weaken america in the world, it's an interesting thread they are trying to draw that obama is anomalous. i think the obama team would argue, i think with some justification, that the world has changed since the cold war. it's no longer just us and russia. it's us and afghanistan and syria. there's a huge number of threats that exist out there. so that older approach doesn't work as well. a fascinating sort of line of argument on foreign policy that if not romney is making all of his advisers are trying to craft. >> our presidents who have been popular like kennedy and eisenhower and all, they were smart about restraining u.s. power. they were not hawks. the obama campaign is out with a new web ad narrated by bill clinton that i plas up obama's courage in taking out osama bin laden last year and questions

whether romney would have done the same. let's listen to president clinton here, at least part of it. >> that's one thing george bush said that was right, the president is the decider in chief. nobody can make that decision for you. look, he knew what would happen. suppose the navy s.e.a.l.s had gone in there and it hadn't been bin laden. suppose they had been captured or killed. the downside would have been horrible for him. but he reasoned. i cannot in good conscience do nothing. he took the harder and the more honorable path. and the one that produced, in my opinion, the best result. >> you can't do better than that. bill clinton giving you the testimony like that is for real. >> this was the rejoiner that

came out of the ad. one of the things that is apparent romney hasn't necessarily articulated what his foreign policy vision is. he gave one major -- >> you're being kind. he made wild statements about going to war with iran. >> he gave one major speech in october. i'm told in may he'll start ramping up foreign policy. >> how can he get tougher with iran without going to war right off the bat? >> that's true. his criticism is of obama is that he would have tougher sanctions. >> another war. these guys have to bring a war with every new president? the bushes all have a war, the first bush had the gulf war, the second bush had a couple more wars. these guys like to have something on deck -- in the on-deck circle. >> you're out of sync with americans. >> take one step back. i think what romney has said, there's been a lack of specificity, a broad lack of specifici

specificity. >> he hasn't given it a thought. >> why, chris? >> mitt romney served as the governor of massachusetts for four years. this is someone who has at least -- he is at least as inexperienced in foreign policy as barack obama was when barack obama was elected. >> thank you. have a nice weekend, guys. enjoy the festivities this week. >> we'll see you there. newt gingrich lost his secret service protection. but he's still going to zoos. this is going to be one of the strangest things in history. what does this guy have to do with running for president and going to zoos? all the time, that's what he does. you can't beat it. he's created the side show and he's in it. we'll be right back. ♪ and you end up strapped for cash ♪ ♪ patching your board with duct tape ♪ ♪ so hit free-credit-score-dot-com ♪ ♪ find out what credit's about ♪ ♪ or else you could be headed for a credit wipeout ♪

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back to "hardball." now for the "sideshow." first up, a slipup that says it all. we say it time and time again.

republicans dancing around questions on president obama's religion whether he was born until the united states or not. >> the president says he'ses a christian. i accept him at his word. >> i think the faith that most americans are questioning is the president's faith in the government. the president says he's a christian. i take him at his word. >> the american people have a right to think what they want to think. >> i think it is very bizarre that he is desperately concerned to apologize to muslim religious fanatics. >> he is an avowed muslim. why isn't something being done to get him out of the government? he has no legal right to be calling himself president. >> well, i'm doing my best to get him out of the government. >> santorum had no problem with that. it came full circle this week. dave spence got caught facing backlash when he said he didn't know if the president was a muslim. one of the candidates aides put together a list of go-to

responses for spence in case his blunder came up at an event this week. well, the snafu, the aide distantially e-mailed her pointers to a group of reporters. what was he supposed to say? plan "a," this is not an issue that i felt was pertinent to my candidacy for governor and expressed those sentiments. here's plan "b," i will be clear president obama says he is a christian. i take him at his word. if all else fails, pivot point, if needed, return to jobs plan. my question to the staffer and to the consultant and the candidate, why not just say i believe president obama is a christian. that's pretty simple and it gets it behind you. while the real face-off between mitt romney and president obama is taking place at center stage, we'll be counting on the "saturday night live" imitations to give us some laughs along the way. nbc's david gregory caught up with jason sadakus.

>> i see so many happy -- and unhappy -- you know, men and women and grandmothers. >> let me take an applause break. thank you. thank you. >> i mean, how do you compete with this guy? i could buy the white house, i could flip it. >> take it, move it. >> i still miss darryl hammonds doing bill clinton. that was the very best. we look at newt gingrich hits and misses for the campaign trail. there's more. guess where he opted to kick off the final weekend of his run for presidency? >> i've been to about 100 zoos. when i was here they fed the meerkats. unbelievable. i never fully understood before

the speed and the alertness. >> they used to have a t-rex. it's now sat the smithsonian. >> i don't mind petting a rhino. i just don't want to be one. >> wonder if he get his animal crackers? that's "hardball" for now. coming up next, "your business" with j.j. ramberg. [ music playing, indistinct conversations ] the charcoal went out already? [ sighs ] forget it. [ male announcer ] there's more barbeque time in every bag of kingsford charcoal. kingsford. slow down and grill.

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